Of the 146 golf courses that closed in 2006, almost all were public courses whose greens fees were less than $40. Golf courses designed to accommodate everyone, regardless of socioeconomic standing, fell by the wayside.

In essence, golf course owners and venture capitalists created a disconnect between the sport's widespread popularity and the number of courses being played. Golf participation continued to rise, but not at the staggering rate of the previous decade - and, more importantly, not at the rate that golf insiders projected.

"You can make a lot of analogies," Affeldt says. "In the fast-food business, there [are] hundreds of thousands of fast-food restaurants, and it doesn't mean that fewer people are eating fewer hamburgers if a hamburger restaurant closes."

Affeldt believes the reason why so many public courses are going under boils down to the combination of real estate and operation. He says too many people were enamored with the concept of golf without understanding the combination of those two factors.

"Maybe they were good businesspeople but picked the wrong location and lost," Affeldt explains. "Or maybe they were good real estate people but bad businesspeople, and they had a nice piece of dirt that would be better suited for some other purpose."

Golf continues to gain popularity; more and more people are hitting the links and watching the game than ever before. Golf course designer William Amick, who attended the practice round at this year's Masters, referred to the warm-up as a "frenzy."

"Almost too many people were there, if you ask me," he says. "We in the industry like to see more people watching and more people playing - that's what drives us to build.  From that standpoint, golf is healthy."